Outdoor Life: Servicemen grateful for Pamama City fishing trip

By Scott Lindsey / Outdoor Writer

Published: Thursday, May 23, 2013 at 03:04 PM.

I think it is a most wonderful thing that these vets could at least have a few days to enjoy themselves. The people that put these trips together are saints. Most us go about our busy lives not knowing that other people are putting their lives on the line for us every single day.

With soldiers like these we can sleep at night knowing nothing is going to harm us or our families. I say thank you, and I hope other warriors come to our city next year and have wonderful experiences like these warriors had this year.

A week ago I reported on a group of servicemen who had been wounded in battle fighting for this country. A group of people from Panama City and other states put together three days of fun and fishing for these vets so they could see this part of the country and sample our hospitality.

One vet sent an e-mail describing his experience while in Panama City. It is from Eugene Dufrene P SFC RET. It goes as follows:

I would like to take this moment to thank my Project Healing Waters guides, Ellen, Curtis and Mark for a very fun and enjoyable time in Panama City, Florida. From the first moment I met these three wonderful people they treated me as if we all had been longtime friends.

This was my first time to attend one of these events, I will have to say. They had everything in order and perfectly scheduled for the entire event. It was well organized and planned to the detail of perfection.

From the first day after checking in at the hotel they had us planned to go onto the beach for casting practice. With the help of these three and the other warriors, I was able to tune up my casting. Thanks a lot because it helped me out when it came to fishing for the next two days.

Day two we were linked up with our boat guides. My first day produced no fish but my guide (Capt. Daniel Snapp) worked with me and taught me several new tips to fly fishing when it came to spotting those elusive redfish.

Even though I didn’t land a fish on my first day, I didn’t let it spoil my hopes for landing some fish on day two. We wound up day one with an excellent dinner. The next day it was back to fishing and what a day of fishing it was.

Curtis put myself and my brother-in-law together with the same boat captain due to my first-day guide was unable to attend due to his work conflict. I was placed with Capt. Todd Jones. Todd is from my hometown and it made for an excellent trip on the water. Todd put us on the fish. We landed our first fish within seconds and then it was one after another for the next several hours.

We landed so many fish I lost count after around 20 or 30. We caught some nice fish. I was so excited because I was having so much fun. Fun was something that I had been missing for a long time and I remember how nice it was to have fun and smile again.

That night’s dinner was another outstanding spread. Our final day was sad in several ways. I made several new friends and wished I had more time to enjoy with them all. We exchanged contact information and had a farewell breakfast.

This trip did a lot of good things for me. I got to experience several feelings that had been dormant for a long time. All of us warriors suffer in our own ways from our experiences from combat but events like this honestly help in several ways to improve our lives.

All the warriors that attended were an excellent makeup. In closing, I would like to say thanks to everyone that had a hand in making this trip happen for us warriors.

Special thanks to Bob McGill, Bubba McCants and Ellen Killuogh for assisting with our rooms and guides.

Thank you, Gene Dufrene

I think it is a most wonderful thing that these vets could at least have a few days to enjoy themselves. The people that put these trips together are saints. Most us go about our busy lives not knowing that other people are putting their lives on the line for us every single day.

With soldiers like these we can sleep at night knowing nothing is going to harm us or our families. I say thank you, and I hope other warriors come to our city next year and have wonderful experiences like these warriors had this year.